The Malik Report

Pavel Datsyuk's agent kept the door open ever-so-slightly to a return to the Red Wings in afternoon discussions with the Wings' media corps, as noted by the Windsor Star's Bob Duff...

“Never say never,” Millstein said. “Anything is possible.”

Datsyuk and Millstein will sit down with the Red Wings’ brain trust when the season concludes. A year ago, he went into a similar meeting with going to back to Russia on his mind and ended up returning to honor the second year of a three-year deal he signed with the Wings in 2014 that annual pays Datsyuk $7.5 million.

“Out of the respect for (Red Wings owners) the Ilitch family, for (Detroit general manager) Ken Holland, Pavel is going to have a meeting as expected,” Millstein said. “While Pavel made his wishes public, there still has to be a conversation with the team as well. They had this meeting that took place a year ago as well. Up until he sits down with them, it’s not a done deal.”

The Red Wings chose to send Anthony Mantha back to the Grand Rapids Griffins, and while I'm not thrilled with the move by any means, Red Wings GM Ken Holland issued a simple explanation as to why the team chose to send Mantha back to the AHL, as noted by the Windsor Star's Bob Duff...

The Wings don’t see the logic in keeping Mantha with the big club to play on the fourth line or sit in the press box, and quite frankly, Mantha wasn’t able to deliver the goods in his first stint as an NHLer.

The Wings prefer to have veteran Joakim Andersson as an extra forward, someone who can win faceoffs and kill penalties, two areas where Mantha can’t help the team.

“He's not playing to start the series,” Holland said of Mantha. “We want to get him playing. We just felt, he's 21, he's a young player, he's got to go play. If we need him at least he'll be playing (in Grand Rapids). Mantha is best served and we're best served if he's playing. Andersson is a pro, has been around pro hockey six or seven years. He's been playing. (Tomas) Jurco is available.”

Tampa: Here's the big edge for the Lightning and it's a notable one: Bishop was outstanding this season. Only Brian Elliott had a better save percentage than Bishop's .926 among goalies who played at least 40 games. Bishop will be a Vezina finalist and had a .922 save percentage against the Red Wings in the first round last season, including a shutout in Game 7. Howard won big games down the stretch but finished with a save percentage of .906 this season. If the Lightning advance, it's because Bishop had a big series and outplayed the Red Wings goalies.

Detroit: There's a temptation to put Larkin in this spot since he's going to come in flying with this being his first postseason, but this series could be the farewell to the NHL for Datsyuk. So much of the focus will be on him, and the Red Wings will need a little more magic from Datsyuk to advance. He had three goals against the Lightning in the first round last year and Detroit will need at least that again this year. According to his agent, Dan Milstein, he enters this playoff series healthy and motivated. "Health is definitely not a problem. He's super-excited. He's extremely concentrated," Milstein said. "He wants to win ... he owes it to the team and most importantly, he owes it to the fans."

Bottom line

Two weeks ago, this would have been an easy one. The Lightning are a Stanley Cup-caliber team and the Red Wings are a team in transition. But factoring in the Lightning's health issues and the Red Wings' emotional aspiration to make one more run for Datsyuk, the pendulum swings enough in Detroit's direction to make this a close series. Tampa has home ice advantage and an sizable edge in goal, though. Lightning in 7.

Though Hedman and Kucherov are expected to be ready for the playoffs' start, there's no guarantee Callahan will be, and Stamkos and Stralman won't be ready until later rounds, Stamkos possibly not at all.

3. The Oakland Press's Pat Caputo wrote what he readily admits is a heavily cynical take on the Wings making the playoffs for the 25th consecutive season (if you're absolutely furious that the Wings made the playoffs because it doesn't fit your dissent with the team's player personnel decisions, I'd suggest that you follow a non-playoff team, because part of being a sports fan is never getting all of what you want with a team's player personnel decisions, or all of the coach and GM's moves; the relationship is never perfect, and if you can't get over that, find another hobby):

So this morning, we're going to play a little, "Let's pretend that the Wings are out of the playoffs this morning, Pavel Datsyuk is leaving, and you are the GM, who must address the team's roster issues."

A source with the Red Wings confirmed with ESPN.com that this was a possibility the team anticipated but the Red Wings still hope to convince him to stay one more year after this season is concluded. The Red Wings are also open to a contract extension to keep him in Detroit beyond next season. If not, the Red Wings will explore all options to remove his contract from the books.

Datsyuk wants to return to Russia to be with his with his teenage daughter and hasn't ruled out playing in the KHL next season.

If Datsyuk follows through it's damaging on a number of fronts for the Red Wings. For one, Datsyuk remains one of their better players. But there's a financial aspect to it that hurts the team.

Datsyuk has one year remaining on his contract that comes with a salary cap charge of $7.5 million. Because it was signed after he was 35 years old, the Red Wings will be stuck with that cap hit next season while Datsyuk is in Russia.

I don't feel anger toward Datsyuk at all--I'm grateful for the time he's given to the Red Wings, and I'm grateful for the Magic Man's fourteen seasons with the Red Wings. I understand that he's missed a good chunk of his daughter Elizabeth's life, and that, as a result, he's going to be playing for the Ak Bars, for CSKA Moscow, maybe even for Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg because he wants to be closer to someone who means the world to him.

I don't feel anger toward Datsyuk regarding the concept of leaving the Wings high and dry with a $7.5 million cap hit to attempt to trade, as hard as that's going to be. If the Flyers can trade Chris Pronger's dead cap hit, even a GM as bumbling as Ken Holland has turned out to be over the past half-decade can legally find a team that wants to hit the cap floor by not paying Datsyuk.

And if there's smoke where there's fire, Larry Brooks' confirmation of the Hockey News's Ken Campbell's rumor about the Wings will be going hard after Steven Stamkos is at least intriguing...

But the Red Wings are going to be losing their most talented player by a wide margin if and when Pavel goes home (Good Lord, I hope the Ilitches and the Wings' management can make Pavel revisit his decision, as hard as that might be. Give him $10 million for another season to stay, give him the keys to the new rink and name it after him, whatever, move the earth and sun, do something, please).

But the Red Wings are going to be losing the smartest man in the locker room, a funny, self-effacing human being who's graced us with his presence for long enough that no one else should be allowed to wear #13 in Detroit again.

But it's Pav. It's the Magic Man. It hurts. And I will miss him terribly.

About The Malik Report

The Malik Report is a destination for all things Red Wings-related. I offer biased, perhaps unprofessional-at-times and verbose coverage of my favorite team, their prospects and developmental affiliates. I've joined the Kukla's Korner family with five years of blogging under my belt, and I hope you'll find almost everything you need to follow your Red Wings at a place where all opinions are created equal and we're all friends, talking about hockey and the team we love to follow.